Like Every Single Tree Reach For The Sky
by only-because3
Summary: That was one of the biggest pieces of irony he’s ever seen; watching his mother plant budding plants that each day grew bigger, stronger, brighter as she became weak, gray, and pale.


Hello all! So I was trying to get this up in time for Easter but I started writing the bulk of it late last night and I totally felt like it had gone crackish so I left for the night. I straightened somethings out this morning and I'm still not thrilled with it, but I like it enough to post :). Got the idea for this when I was writing a Kurt drabble on livejournal and I hope it all turned out well (and that I captured Kurt well enough... I've never written him before and I was pretty nervous about it). Oh! And I almost forgot: If you're waiting for a Wonderwall update one should be coming at some point this week! Anyway, enjoy!

* * *

There are not many things he remembers about his mother. One of the things that flash in his mind like a big neon sign is gardening. His mother gardened every year without fail, even as she was slowly dying (that was one of the biggest pieces of irony he's ever seen; watching his mother plant budding plants that each day grew bigger, stronger, brighter as she became weak, gray, and pale). The back corner of the backyard was filled with flowers and vegetables all year round (they grew their own pumpkins every Halloween until she died) and he always used to love sitting right in the middle of it. As he got older, his mom would let him help more and more until it was something they did side by side. And when she got too sick to be let outside, he would go out (rain or shine) and tend to the plants while she watched from her bed.

The garden died when she did. Looking out the kitchen window and seeing the bleak wasteland in the corner of the backyard was almost as hard as seeing it bright and full of life when she wasn't. For two years, he and his dad barely stepped in the backyard (they paid some kid down the street ten bucks every two weeks to mow it), the kitchen blinds always closed.

One day, Kurt came home from school, it was the official start of his spring break, and went into the kitchen to grab a water. He stared at the dirty white blinds that had remained closed for the past few years before he does something he never thought he'd do. He walks over and turned the clear stick in his fingers, outside beginning to peak through the white flaps. He opens it cautiously (like if he opens the blinds too fast, his mother will jump out at him), eyes carefully peering through the cracks until his vision is only skewed by near invisible white lines. He sees his reflection and he sees the dried and shriveled plants in the corner, vines from some left over plant thriving along the old wooden fence.

He stares at it silently until he takes a deep breath and shuts the blinds.

* * *

The next day he rides his bike to Home Depot. He buys new gloves, new soil, new _everything_ because he's not even sure they still have the tools he and his mom used (he knows that they do [his dad never could part with anything, especially if it belonged to her] but he's not sure he can handle looking at his too small gloves and her pretty [though stained] white flowered gloves).

By the time his dad gets home from work he's torn out everything except the vines that are still growing strong on the fence. "What are you doing?"

He looks up from the hole he's digging, locking eyes with his dad. "I'm gardening."

His dad takes off his faded blue baseball cap and runs a tired hand over his balding head. "That was her garden."

"I know."

He's quiet again and Kurt almost thinks he's going to start crying or worse, yell at him for touching something that was hers.

His dad surprises him when he says, "Tomorrow we'll go down and get the flowers she used to plant. Deal?"

He smiles. "Deal."

* * *

The garden is returned to its former glory, his mother's vines protecting the edges. Bright reds, blues, and purples sprout up from the ground, all reaching proudly toward the sky while vegetables start growing quickly on the other side of the dirt. His dad wraps his arm around his shoulders, Kurt becoming completely enveloped in the older man's embrace. "You did good. She'd be proud that it looks like this."

Kurt places a hand on his brow, looking out at the colors in front of them, shielding the sun from his eyes. He glances up and smiles brightly.

* * *

This spring break he spends his days hanging out with Mercedes at the mall, not even thinking about the garden until he gets home in the evening. It's much cooler then, with the sun setting and creating such pretty oranges and pinks in the sky that he prefers to do all his gardening then (that way his shirts don't end up sticking to his back with sweat).

He waters each plant individually, sings to them sometimes (his mom always said it was important to talk to your plants, it was what helped them grow, just like people), and weeds out all unwanted green sprouts and bugs.

On the fourth day of spring break though, he doesn't go to the mall with Mercedes. Instead, he goes to home depot and picks out one of his mom's favorite flowers. Then he gets back into his car and drives to the hospital.

When he reaches Quinn Fabray's hospital room, it depresses him tremendously. Everything is sterile and blindingly white (this includes the blonde on the bed) and the room isn't filled with balloons or flowers or cards. Just a deflated teenage girl who gave birth early that morning and no baby.

She doesn't say anything, just looks at him with scrunched eyebrows and he smiles cautiously. He steps further into the room and sets the potted plant on the bedside table, lilies bouncing softly. "You brought me a potted plant?" He nods and sits down in the only chair in the room, crossing his legs as he does do. "Why?"

"Memories get ridiculously fuzzy over time. No matter how hard you try to hold on to them or how important they are, details fade the longer it's been. Gardening is one of the few things I can still remember doing with her. I figured that maybe these lilies will help remind you of her."

"Oh," she says softly, and he notices that she's looking past him, out the window and at something else entirely until she turns her head away, gaze going down to her deflated stomach. "Why'd you come here Kurt?"

"Because even though we've barely spoken to one another and I'm not even certain we like each other, you're going to need this in the coming weeks."

She arches an eyebrow in question. "I'm going to need potted lilies?"

"You're going to need something to take care of so that you don't break down. This plant is your daughter," he says, pushing the plant closer to her, bits of dirt falling out of the pot and dropping on to the table. "Because you can't watch her grow, you can watch these flowers grow and turn into something beautiful. Don't let her down, don't let this plant down."

She nods, looking down at the plants, hand reaching out to finger the petals. She exhales loudly before looking back at the boy across from her. "You didn't have to do this."

"Yes I did."

"Why's that?"

"Seeing my mother die slowly for months was the hardest thing I've ever seen. I can't imagine what it was like for you in that room… to see her and hold her knowing she was already dead." He's being blunt (something he almost always is; he doesn't hesitate to tell Mercedes when she looks like a hot damn mess or to insult Rachel on that ludicrous pantsuit) but this is the only time it physically hurts him to do so. This is not something Quinn needs to hear right now but it's something no one else will have the balls to say to her _ever_. "I'd call it a blessing but we both know that it wasn't… It all hurts the same."

Her face contorts and salty liquid springs from her eyes, a chocked sob escaping her chocked lips. "She was _my baby_," she cries, fingers trying to quickly brush away the tears that keep falling. "I never got to hear her, or see what color her eyes were… What will people think of me?" She looks at him now like he has the answers, her face reddening as her cheeks glisten under the florescent lights. "What kind of mother doesn't know what color her baby's eyes are, _were_?"

He gets up and perches himself on the edge of her hospital bed, awkwardly pulling her towards him (they're not close enough to one another to hug and he's wearing a D&G sweater) but she needs this. And so he wraps his small arms around her shaking body, hand rubbing her back soothingly. "Nobody will think less of you Quinn. You didn't do anything wrong."

"I spent my whole first trimester trying to pretend she wasn't there… I fucking _prayed_ that something would happen and that she'd just go away… But I loved her so much Kurt… I wanted her, I wanted to keep her. She wasn't a mistake, she was my _daughter_ and I felt, feel, so bad for wishing that whole time that she wasn't going to happen because I didn't want that anymore… She was _mine."_ She cries harder into his sweater until she suddenly pushes him away, hands gliding over his sweater. "And now I've ruined your sweater just like I've ruined everything else."

He puts his hands on her shoulders. "It's just a sweater. It's no big deal." She nods slowly and lifts up the sheet that lies over her legs to dry her face.

A shaky hand rests against her lips as her eyes look out the window, her chin perched in her palm. "You know how people always say that when people die it's for a reason? That it's never just pointless, it's like a catalyst for change?" He nods. "Why do you think He took them away? Because I've been trying to figure this out for the past thirteen hours why it was necessary to take her. And I'm sure your mom was a wonderful person and I know that you loved her a lot, so what was the point in taking her?" Her tears have slowed down but she's still shaking like she's freezing and he wonders briefly if he should call the nurse.

(He doesn't though because he shook like that for a week after she died.)

"When my mom realized and accepted the fact that she was going to die, she told my dad and me that it was because we didn't have a guardian angel. We needed someone up there to look over us and God was asking her to do it." He shrugs lamely. "It took a long time for me to accept that answer. Partly because I thought it'd be a hell of a lot simpler for her to just watch over us here and partly because I was being thrown into dumpsters on a regular basis. But everything's worked out… It's still hard but sometimes I think it would've been a lot harder if she wasn't with me all the time."

Quinn nods and leans into her bed. They're quiet for a long time until Puck comes into the room while the sun is setting outside the window. He looks at the both of them confused but neither one offer up an answer. Kurt gets up, pats her hand affectionately and grabs his bag. "I find that these grow best when you water them a little in the morning and a little at night," he says, pointing to the lilies that have already closed for the night.

She nods and he turns away, only to stop when he feels her hand on his forearm. "Thank you," she says with a small smile and she looks so sincere that it hurts.

He nods slightly and returns the smile_._


End file.
